LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2001, Page 372

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372 THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Church (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), paragraphs 1399-1401.
Note especially this poignant and worthy statement from the latter
source: “The Eucharist and the unity of Christians. Before the
greatness of this mystery St. Augustine exclaims, ‘O sacrament of
devotion! O sign of unity! O bond of charity!’ The more painful the
experience of the divisions in the Church which break the common
participation in the table of the Lord, the more urgent are our
prayers to the Lord that the time of complete unity among all who
believe in him may return.” (par. 1398)

The Catechism goes on to teach: “Ecclesial communities de-
rived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic
Church, ‘have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic
mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the
sacrament of Holy Orders.’ It is for this reason that Eucharistic in-
tercommunion with these communities is not possible for the
Catholic Church.” (par. 1400)

3. DEUP’s major shortcoming may be mentioned here at the
beginning of this study. DEUP simply makes no mention whatso-
ever of the corporate dimensions of the Eucharist and the corpo-
rate implications for those who would commune together.

4. Paul is so focused on the corporate question that in these pas-
sages he leaves entirely unstated that benefit of the Eucharist that
we normally regard as central to the Lord’s own institution—
namely, the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28)! The apostle explic-
itly deals only with the corporate aspects and benefits of the Lord's
Supper.

5. It should be noted carefully that here Paul speaks of the entire
Eucharist even though he mentions only the loaf, the bread.
Through a synecdoche (“a part for the whole’’), “one loaf” refers
to both the bread and the wine, the body and the blood of the Lord.

6. Jeffrey A. Gibbs, “An Exegetical Case for Close(d) Commu-
nion: | Corinthians 10:14—22; 11:17-34,” Concordia Journal 21
(April 1995):153.

7. There may be a reference to a Corinthian house church under
Gaius’ patronage in Rom. 16:23 (cf. | Cor. 1:14). Note that Prisca
and Aquila sponsor house churches in both Ephesus (1 Cor. 16:19)
and Rome (Rom. 16:4-5)!

8. Ben Witherington, UI, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A
Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on I and 2 Corinthians (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1995), 8.

9. Wayne Meeks writes: “Festive meals were a common feature
of the life of voluntary associations of all sorts, and the Christians’
Supper was still understood in this way by Pliny, who early in the
second century in Bithynia forbade such meals, in accordance with
Trajan’s ban against clubs.” The First Urban Christians: The So-
cial World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven and London: Yale,
1983), 158.

{0. Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1987), 533-34.

11. Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 477. Martial, a
younger contemporary of St. Paul, commented on Roman society
on all levels. Ben Witherington cites Martial concerning dinners
where levels of social status were reflected on the menu: “Since I
am asked to dinner..., why is not the same dinner served to me as to
you? You eat oysters fattened in the Lucrine Lake while I suck a
mussel through a hole in the shell. You get mushrooms while I get
hog funguses. You tackle turbot, but I brill. Golden with fat, a tur-
tledove gorges you with its bloated rump, but a magpie that has
died in its cage is set before me. Why do I dine without you, Ponti-
cus, even though I am dining with you?” Conflict and Community,
242.

12. There is some debate over the translation of tpoAapBavet
(v. 21) and exSéxeo8e (v. 33). The question is whether the normal
temporal component of meaning should be reflected: “takes be-
forehand” and “wait for,” or whether the equally well-attested
translations of “receive” and “welcome” should be preferred. In a
thorough and balanced discussion, A. Andrew Das opts for the lat-
ter translations. The rich Christians are likely receiving and abusing
their abundance of food at the same time that poorer Christians are

2001 Convention Workbook

receiving poorer fare. “| Corinthians |1:17-34 Revisited,” Con-
cordia Theological Quarterly 62 (July 1998):188-92.

13. Peter Lampe, in “The Eucharist: Identifying with Christ on
the Cross,” Interpretation 48 (January 1994): 38-39, thinks that the
Corinthians’ community meals were a form of the E€pavog a kind of
potluck to which each participant brought something. The épavog
is, according to Lampe, as early as Homer and as late as the second
century A.D. “Either each participant ate his or her own food,
brought along in a basket, or all of the provisions were put on a
common table, as is done at a potluck dinner” (38).

14. Witherington writes, “If the Christians themselves viewed
their household assemblies as being like such collegia, some of
them might also have assumed that it was appropriate to operate
the group according to the social conventions of the larger society.
These associations had a clear hierarchical structure of deities, then
patrons or leaders, and, finally, ordinary members, which on the
surface at least would seem to parallel the structure of the Christian
ekklesia in Corinth. [t should not surprise us then that the Corinthi-
ans would revert to normal socializing and dining behavior at their
meetings (cf. | Cor.11:20-22). The major difference between the
Christian house meetings and such societies was that the Christians
gathered mainly for religious worship and fellowship, not ordinary
socializing with a religious element. . . .°(32).

15. The problem is not new in the story of God’s people (cf.
Is.1:14-17; James 2: 1-4; Gal. 2:12-15).

16. The corporate character of the Eucharist is further under-
scored by its institution in the context of the Passover meal
(Matthew 26; Mark 16; Luke 22). At Passover, God called out of
Egypt a people for His own possession. In the giving of His body
and His blood into death, Christ instituted a new covenant rela-
tionship between God and His people.

17. Paul emphasizes the Eucharist as the remembrance of Jesus
by repeating the Lord’s words “for my remembrance” (et” thy Env
avapvyoty, 11:24, 25). The phrase is absent from Matthew and
Mark, and present in the Lord’s words in Luke 22:19 only once,
after the giving of the bread.

18. The close connection between “the remembrance of Jesus”
and the “proclaiming of the Lord’s death” is seen in the repetition
of the rare adverb “as often as” (OoGKt’, 11:25, 26), found in the
New Testament only here and in Rev. 11:6.

19. The indirect object of “you are proclaiming” (KatayyéAAete)
is unexpressed. In the present context, however, it seems most likely
that the proclamation is going on among members of the congrega-
tion. That is to say, when one participates in the Lord’s Supper one
is proclaiming the Lord’s death to one’s fellow communicants. If
this is so, then “you are proclaiming the Lord’s death” (11:26) is
perhaps parallel in meaning to “for my remembrance” (11:24, 25).

20. It should be noted that “the Lord’s death” stands in an em-
phatic, fronted position in | 1:26. Beverly Roberts Gaventa empha-
sizes the uniqueness of the phrase “the Lord’s death” and states:
“In my judgment, the phrase ‘the death of the Lord’ refers to Jesus’
death in all its significance as the scandalous event in which al]
human values and expectations are overturned (cf. | Cor.1:23).”
“’You Proclaim the Lord’s Death’: 1 Corinthians 11:26 and Paul’s
Understanding of Worship,” Review and Expositor 80 (Summer
1983): 380. She further comments, “That death, in Paul’s view,
stands diametrically opposed to the claims of social status that were
at work in the Corinthian community. To proclaim the death of the
Lord is, to say the least, not to proclaim one’s own rights or pre-
rogatives” (384).

21. The genitive case after the adjective “guilty” (e[noco”) can
express three things: (1) the punishment to be received (Matt.
26:66); (2) the crime that has been committed (Mark 3:29); or (3)
the person or thing against whom the sin has been committed (ls.
54:17; James 2:10). An interpreter who does not hold to the real
presence will probably opt for the second sense, as awkward as that
might be. If the third sense is what Paul intended, then note well
that the real sinning in Corinth is against the Sacrament itself.

22. V. C. Pfitzner, Chi Rho Commentary on First Corinthians
(Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1982), 184.